Did we really need a study to tell us this? “New academic research released last week showing that extending unemployment benefits is a net economic drag could strengthen the conservative case against extending those benefits at the federal level.” New Study: Unemployment Benefits Weaken Economy

Let’s not let them get away with it. Arm yourself with rebuttals and then push back, and hard. “Well, only when it’s convenient to the narrative. But every time this happens, it’s fair to bring up Clinton, Filner, Weiner, John Edwards, et al. Make it unpleasant for them, spoil their narrative, and they’ll stop. But read the whole thing. UPDATE: Reader Michael Schrage writes: “Good God, man! Why are you leaving out Spitzer?’” APPARATCHIK DAVID GREGORY tries to drag Rand Paul into the “War on Women,” but it doesn’t work.

Wise words, but will they listen? “In sum: With respect to the must-pass debt ceiling legislation, the House conservatives should let it pass. With respect to immigration reform, which isn’t must-pass, leadership should let it die. The guiding principle should be do no harm. This year, doing no harm requires both conservative activists and the GOP establishment to sacrifice something. So they should make a deal: No default in return for no amnesty. Such a deal should mean no GOP tears this November.” Memo to House GOP

Lots of good nuggets in this article. Read the whole thing! “The Establishment’s rules also require that we stop demanding that Republicans who claim to be conservative act like conservatives, support conservatism and, you know, be conservative. The rules are there because this short-sighted insistence by conservatives on conservatism is somehow certain to prevent the success of conservatism. We conservatives are just too unsophisticated to understand that true conservatism will only be achieved by a strategy of surrender, compromise and acquiescence to expanded government power.” Conservatives Must Break the Establishment’s Rules

I think we’ll be waiting an awfully long time for the low information voters to wake up. “When American voters wake up to the true moral character of the Democratic Party it will be a permanent and fateful day for the DNC, far more devastating to the party than the ObamaCare fiasco, since the moral stature of the Democrats depends on a deception that has been carried on for one hundred years.” Busted! The Democratic Party’s Moral Superiority

Good news! “Not only has he delivered the goods but (this is the best bit) Walker now wants to give those goods back to the voters in the form of a tax break. So the message to America, and the rest of the world, is this: get spending under control, cut business taxes, create a welfare system that encourages people to seek work and you will balance the budget, reduce unemployment and be able to let people keep more of their money. It turns out that conservative economics, applied with determination and care, can work.” How Scott Walker and the conservatives saved Wisconsin. America, take note

The media IS oddly silent. “One might argue that Walker’s now-obvious success is boring and unworthy of national attention, except for the fact that the press still features Walker in national stories from time to time — really important stuff like the fact that he got selected for jury duty but didn’t serve. Turning a projected $3.6 billion deficit into a surplus, bringing down the unemployment rate, and proposing an across-the-board tax cut? Forget about it. And what little coverage does occur is almost comical, especially from the mostly unionized Associated Press. Take the last sentence of the following excerpted paragraph from AP reporter Scott Bauer on Friday morning: … in the Senate, where Republicans have a narrow 18-15 majority, some lawmakers are questioning raising the state’s projected shortfall by cutting taxes as much as Walker wants. Many Republicans campaigned on the fact that in 2011 they eliminated a projected $3.6 billion shortfall. Walker used that shortfall as the reason to effectively eliminate public worker unions, while also increasing how much they had to pay for their pension and health care benefits.” Wisconsin’s Not Worthy of National Media Attention Any More, Because Scott Walker’s Been Successful

A message from RNC Chairman Reince Preibus: “After the 2012 president election, it was clear that the Republican Party needed to take steps to give our presidential nominees a better chance at winning the White House. One of those steps is a shorter primary process. It’s my goal to have a convention in late June or early July. That way the nominee has access to general election resources earlier, allowing him or her to be more competitive against the Democrats’ nominee. It also means the media can’t over-hype a drawn-out fight among our candidates. But we did have to make sure that our primary voters would have their voices heard—and that all primary candidates would have a chance to make their cases. So on Friday, we passed new rules to shape the 2016 presidential primary process.” RNC Changes Primary Rules to Empower Voters, Strengthen Nominee

Shake up. “This week past, the Republican National Committee, ably led by Wisconsin’s Reince Priebus, put into effect reforms of the presidential nominating process that greatly simplify and shorten the primary season and, when combined with the two others reforms that are coming –an early convention in June or early July, and a coherent, purpose-driven debate system and schedule–will greatly enhance the prospects of the eventual GOP nominee.” Winter-Spring Of 2016: Common Sense Envelops The GOP

Side effects? “The Republican National Committee is looking to reform the presidential primary process, and in so doing, weaken the influence of the party’s conservative base. Is this a feature? Or a bug? More like a marriage of convenience. The length and bitterness of the 2012 primary season weakened Mit Romney going into the general election. All those silly debates did nothing to enlighten the American people and only served as a point of contention between candidates. So while compressing the primary season may be a sound political strategy, it has the side effect of diluting the conservative vote.” RNC ‘primary reform’ aimed at the base

This: “The favorite senator of Wall Street and K Street explained to a liberal D.C. audience last week how to defang the Tea Party: offer a populist message that splits the grassroots from their wealthy donors. Republicans should listen to this counsel, and turn the tables on Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.” And this: “Schumer understands that politics is largely about showing voters that you are on their side. This effort has two parts: First, fight for the regular guy. Second, fight against the special interests. Conservatives need to beat Schumer at this.” And finally, this: “Of course, Democrats would hate trimming corporate welfare for their clients. Schumer and friends would suddenly find themselves choosing between helping the unemployed, and sticking by their party’s donors. Republicans could beat Schumer at his divide-and-conquer populist game —if Republicans are willing to actually battle corporate welfare themselves.” Timothy P. Carney on Chuck Schumer: Voice of the little man, courtier of plutocrats

How do we make them see? “In truth, no administration in recent memory has done more to harm young people. Like some strange exotic species of the animal kingdom, we Americans are now eating our own young.” Eating Our Young

Reaping what they voted for. “Today, it’s clear progressives have turned out to be as easy to command as their caricatures of backwards evangelicals. Today, one out of three of Millennials aged 18-31, the young progressives who gave Obama’s campaign its inspirational heart and voted for him overwhelmingly, are living at home with their parents. They put their heart and soul into campaign after campaign, believing they could change the country and the planet. And after all their effort, what do they have to show for it? “Free” birth control that you have to pay for in higher premiums to big insurance? Talk about a cheap date. Congratulations, progressive Millennials: you’re more like Jerry Falwell than you ever imagined.” Congratulations, Progressive Millennials: You’re The Cheapest Date In Town

He’s right, but like Rep. David Schweikert says, we have to choose our words better. “In a controversial letter published in the WSJ today, Tom Perkins compares the war on the 1% to the escalation of hate propaganda in Germany that led to Kristallnacht: “I perceive a rising tide of hatred of the successful one percent…This is a very dangerous drift in our American thinking.” Kristallnacht was unthinkable in 1930; is its descendent “progressive” radicalism unthinkable now? Predictably, when a person invokes a Nazi comparison people scoff, and Perkins compounded his scoffability quotient by invoking the Nazi comparison while defending the rich (if you want to see scoffing, read the comments about his piece in blogs on the left). Nevertheless, what Perkins said isn’t even really all that controversial. He’s talking about the dangers of drumming up hatred, not mere disagreement with, a segment of society. His point was about Germany in the early days of the Nazis’ rise (Hitler was not even chancellor yet in 1930), not Germany in 1938 (the date of Kristallnacht) or Germany later, when the Nazi machine had gotten the death apparatus fully in gear. His point is that it’s a continuum, and the early days contain the seeds of the later ones.” The war on the 1% and the war on the opposition

The blame game will continue until further notice. “How pathetic is it to see the leader of the free world attempting to subdue his cognitive dissonance by convincing himself that if not for pressure from voters, Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) would otherwise be falling lockstep into dutiful compliance with Mr. Brilliant’s vision?” Barack Obama’s Constant State of Cognitive Dissonance

This: “There is nothing accidental about the president’s apparent foreign-policy blunders.” And this: “For Obama, America abroad is analogous to the 1 percent at home. We need not squabble over the reasons why the wealthiest Americans enjoy unequal access to the things money can buy, or why America, of all nations, finds itself with unmatched global clout and influence. The concern is only that such privilege exists; that it is unfair; that it has led to injustice for the majority; and that it must be changed.” Obama’s Recessional

Appeasement is not the answer. “Who are these people, and how do we place them in the context of history? We go back and look at those who ignored crimes against humanity, who cared more for their own power and less for principles of freedom, and we ask ourselves where those people led us. And the answer is straightforward: They led us into peril, into war and into death. Worse still, unlike foolish Chamberlains, they were the selfish Baldwins, who served their own domestic political aims at the expense of mankind.” Barack Obama — our appeaser in chief

Narrative shifts. “President Obama has already changed his vernacular concerning his second term focus of “income inequality.” He is now calling it “ladders of opportunity.” In an apparent effort to blunt criticism over his intent to engage in full-blown class warfare during his second term, Obama is softening the harsher term with a new label. The Associated Press reports that Obama has shifted his rhetoric from “complaining” about income inequality toward language that creates an appearance that he is offering support for the middle class. Since his December 4 economic speech where he used the word “inequality” 26 times, the word is nonexistent in subsequent posts on his website, his press releases, and his speeches.” Obama Shifts from ‘Income Inequality’ to ‘Ladders of Opportunity’

I know I won’t be listening. “Of course it will; that was a foregone conclusion. The left thinks this will distract everyone from the problems the Democrats and Obama have been having. When in doubt, stir up class envy and turmoil. Oh, and by the way, upward mobility has not declined, according to a large and important recent study. And that was reported in the NY Times, of all places; I wonder how they let that slip by? The researchers were economics professors at Harvard and Berkeley, by the way.” State of the Union Address to focus on income inequality

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. “He also promised that the president would lay out a set of “real, concrete, practical proposals to grow the economy, strengthen the middle class and empower all who hope to join it.” In the days after the speech, Obama plans to hammer the message home with travel to Maryland, Pittsburgh, Pa., Milwaukee, Wis., and Nashville, Tenn.” After Tuesday speech, Obama to take ‘year of action’ theme on the road

Of course they are not curious, he’s a conservative. “’The indictment of a major critic of the president has elicited little more than yawns from the media. This is a case where you don’t even have to connect the dots. Just read a little history.’ The press basically approves of thuggery, so long as it’s aimed at people they don’t like. They only start talking about civility, due process, the constitution, and free speech when they or their allies are in trouble. And the presumption of innocence only applies to Democratic pols and operatives. Elsewise, “indicted” is treated as tantamount to ‘convicted.’” RICK MORAN: Media Not Very Curious about D’Souza Indictment.

We definitely have a problem. But who will stop it? “Anyone familiar with my writing knows that I have bent over backwards to give the IRS the benefit of the doubt in this black eye some call the “exemption scandal.” I must admit I’m getting a little tired of bending. Back in the day, as the saying goes, I often referred to the IRS as Fortress Secrecy, a term meant to describe the agency’s obsession with hiding as much of its operations as it can get away with. I am not a casual observer, and I have never seen things this bad. Everything the IRS has done in addressing the exemption scandal leads to just one conclusion: that this agency now believes it is accountable to no one other than itself. Who is responsible for that? Commissioner Koskinen, you have a problem. President Obama, you have a problem. America, we have a problem. An agency with this much power cannot be unaccountable to the citizens it was designed to serve.” TAX ANALYSTS: Trying To Investigate The IRS Scandal, And Meeting “Fortress Secrecy.”

Chicago politics on steroids. “Politics: The Obama administration has turned the executive branch loose on its enemies — part of a disturbing and unprecedented trend toward delegitimizing political differences and marginalizing conservatives.” Obama Uses Government To Harass, Intimidate Foes

A long list of gangster acts. “* I know from personal experience that the IRS harasses Republican campaign contributors and Holder’s Department of Justice has groundlessly threatened Republican donors with criminal prosecution. These cases don’t make headlines because DOJ backs off when they can’t come up with even a “ham sandwich” indictment. But imagine how chilling it must be to be summoned before a grand jury, for absolutely no reason other than political retaliation, as the subject of a criminal investigation.” Gangster Government, Rampant

An even longer list of gangster government atrocities. “But apparently not this administration. Hillary Clinton was right. But she and those who cheered her are nowhere to be found now that the sideshow of Dixie Chicks protests have been replaced by the infinitely more threatening governmental suppression of principled public dissent. Today, left-leaning America — as well as the constitutionally protected MSM — have no interest in standing up for the patriotic right to “debate and disagree” with the Chicago-style thuggery of the Obama administration. That is tragic for the cause of liberty, our politics, and our increasingly fragile republic.” The Unceasing Political Thuggery of Obama’s Gangster Government

Get this in your heads Progressives… There’s NO SUCH THING AS FREE STUFF. “Progressives are only popular until the people realize that the men and women offering them everything for free can’t clean up the snow, but can beat them bloody and can’t fix their healthcare, but can destroy it. The left wins at politics, but fails at policies. It’s learned to stop looking like Carter, but it hasn’t figured out how to stop governing like him. When Americans realize that the political choices they make are also policy choices between large sodas, salty pretzels, open market health care and open streets on the one hand or food fascism, DMV health care and bloody faces on the other; they will choose the unorganized happiness of freedom over the disorganized tyrannies of Bloomberg, De Blasio and Obama.” The Totalitarians of New York

The Left is stuck on their narrow views of how things work. “Haidt has a theory that moral reasoning is driven by, as Zywicki writes, “five key vectors or values of psychological morality: (1) care/harm, (2) fairness, (3) loyalty, (4) authority, and (5) sanctity.” Haidt posits that “conservative values are more overlapping than liberals–conservatives have a ‘thicker’ moral worldview that includes all five values, whereas liberals have a ‘thinner’ view that rests on only two variables,” in Zywicki’s summary. Thus conservatives have a far greater capacity to understand the liberal worldview than vice versa–and, applying the theory to the case at hand, Cuomo and de Blasio are simply unable to overcome their own cognitive limits.” Why They Wish the Right Left

We’ve got a terrific line up for our annual Christmas program. First up will be the Ignite Barbershop Quartet. Ignite began singing together after a quartet matching party in November 2015. They are all Champion members of Region 21’s Scottsdale Chorus and they will be singing for us!

After lunch, Congressional District 6 congressman, Representative David Schweikart, will talk to us about what’s happening in Washington DC, and provide us with a status of the Tax Bill working its way through the House of Representatives and Senate.

Finally, member Julia Graham will install our new 2018/2019 officers. We look forward to seeing you and be sure to bring a friend or two or three!